Quote:How do I create a new torrent (share a file I have with others)?
Sharing files that you have with others is relatively easy with BitTorrent, but a little extra work is required compared to marking a directory as "shared" as with some other file sharing applications. There are essentially three elements necessary to sharing a file with BitTorrent:
The tracker, which coordinates connections among the peers. Bandwidth required is very moderate compared to the size of the files being shared.
The web server, which stores and serves the .torrent file. This is usually a quite small file, and is only requested once by each peer before initiating the transfer. The web server also serves to index and organize the torrents, since there is no built-in search capability in the BitTorrent protocol -- existing web techniques are instead used.
At least one seeder. This is the only element of the three that contains any of the file's actual contents. The seeder is almost always an end-user's desktop machine, rather than a dedicated server machine.
In earlier periods of BitTorrent, the process was somewhat more difficult because frequently you had to run your own tracker (and possibly web server) in addition to the seeder. Recently, however, torrent communities have sprouted which take care of many of the details of running a tracker and distributing the .torrent metadata file. For most purposes, using one of these communities is the quickest and easiest way to share data.
For the purposes of this part of the FAQ, we will assume you already have a tracker and web server, or access to them. Most of the sites in the links section (Links to Popular BitTorrent Sites) run trackers and web servers that you are welcome to use. The rule of thumb here is to never create a torrent for a tracker which you do not have permission to use. In most cases that simply means that if you intend to use a tracker, you should also post your .torrent file to the website associated with the tracker, so that the whole community can benefit.
